Bridge for Africa (BfA) June 2026 Newsletter Highlights: New Clubs / Results / Learning / Interesting Statistics

The number of bridge clubs using BfA's Internet services - chiefly the BriAn scoring app, the Pianola website and online bridge - has increased to 22 with the enrollment of Somerset West's Gordons Bay and Helderberg bridge clubs. Several of the 22 are smaller clubs, often in gated communities or retirement villages, which cannot afford traditional BridgeMates and just love the low-cost, Internet-based alternative, while the TDs are delighted to be relieved of scoring from scribbled pieces of paper.

The June round of the Buccaneer League brought down the curtain on the 2025/2026 season with Hermanus I the worthy winners of League 1, while the Bidding Box 2, South Cape and Table View teams won the other three leagues; you can click here to view the results of and log after the June final round matches. Please contact Jan Chrobok (Whatsapp 82 650-4809) if your club would like to enter a team in the 2026/2027 competition - because the competition is held using BBO, clubs around the country, or even beyond, could participate. How about a team from Lusaka or Nairobi?

The second of Cape Town's Village Bridge Club's La Cuccina Bridge Fiesta/Feast @ The Baxter tournaments last Sunday was another success with 43 pairs taking part. The winners were Peter Terblanche & Selwyn Gersowsky; you can click here to view the full results. The next one is being planned for four to six weeks hence; details will be posted in the News section of the BfA website or, nearer the time, you can Whatsapp Graham Spolander (065 893-6215) for more information and to enter.

Congratulations to the following players for achieving the best average in 3+ sessions at their club during June: Patty Geddes & Kim Wray (Constantina Monday); Wilson McLeod & Anthony Goldstein (Village Monday); Eileen & Paul Mestern (Village Thursday); Sonia Berman (Constantiaberg); Di Knowler & Linda Campbell (Le Domaine Thursday RealBridge); Jonathan Reese & Pavine Ruscoe (Le Domaine Friday A); Rosemary Fraser & Lorraine Field (Le Domaine Friday B); Eila Steyl (Constantina Friday); Kevin Middleton (HDBC); Helen Maddison (Lowveld); Jody Feuilherade & Karen Teichman (Simbithi); Brian Paxton (Steenberg); Richard Murgatroyd & Elsabe Horne (Bataleur); Barbara Koenig (Stables); Sue & Anthony Goldstein (Hout Bay); Pam Caldwell (Tokai Estate); Marlene Sasman & Stephen Guinsberg (Bergvliet); Karen Teichman (Dragon Fly); Clyde Mallinson & Bill Wilkie (Le Domaine Saturday RealBridge); David Thayser (Great Oaks); Ellen Bryans & Debi Balladon (Helderberg); Debi Balladon & Lynette Herholdt (Gordon's Bay) and Andre Wagener (BfA BBO). It's nice to see new names - and new clubs - appearing each month. You can view the results of all these competitions here.

BfA's BBO team organises Tuesday afternoon BBO tournaments at 14h00 open to players at all BfA clubs. To play just logon to BBO in good time and select Competitive, All tournaments, and then enter BfA in the Search bar. The R 30 a head BfA RealBridge sessions organised by Le Domaine on Thursday and Saturday afternoons are seeing increased interest; contact Rod (079 673 5077) or Louise (082 577 9942) ahead of time to play. On a cold and stormy winter's day, online bridge is the way to go!

Sadly the 2026 version of the popular Bedford Bridge Tournament, my personal favourite each year, has had to be cancelled for a variety of reasons but will hopefully take place again in 2027. Please let us know of any other 2026 open African tournaments planned so we can bring them to the attention of our players.

Moving to upgrading your bridge skills, here is leading bridge teacher Jeff Sapire's latest mini-lesson: When partner agrees your major with a single raise 1S-2S; with 6-4 shape hands, unless terribly weak, go straight to game. AKxxxx x KQxx xx go straight to game. Making game will depend a lot more on ‘where’ partner’s points are, rather than whether they are minimum or maximum. The time NOT to jump straight to 4 is with a hand like AKxxxx x Kxxx QJ - a loose king and soft club values. Here, make a game try of some sort; 3S or 3D or 3H (depending on your game try methods).

The Bridge Tips page on the Bridge for Africa website provides plenty more to furnish your bridge armoury. And for those of you playing at clubs using the BriAn scoring app, the quickest way to find the names of the players at your table at the start of play is to just type each player's initials separated by a space - so typing D S will bring up a list of players with those initials.

I am sure you have had the experience of playing at a table where one of the players makes an insufficient bid; what usually happens is that the rest of the players insist that the miscreant adjusts their bid to the right level. As you can see from the PDF rule summary, the only player who can act is the next player to bid and she / he has several options, including allowing the insufficient bid to stand.

In our last newsletter I suggested that AI could spell the demise of experts writing about bridge hands. However, on a more positive note, AI could also be a great teaching tool giving you feedback on how you might have bid, played or defended a hand. But be sure to examine the AI generated advice carefully to see if you can better their suggested solution; recently, for instance, I submitted a copy of Pianola's travellers for a session where I played to Anthropic's Claude and, after a lot of thought, it advised how to bid each of the hands using SAYC, Acol and Precision - a major problem was that Claude had transposed the East and West cards for each board rendering the advice given distinctly suspect. Critical analysis of AI output is a new skill and habit we all need to acquire - and not just in a bridge context.

Turning to the monthly BfA statistics which gives you a hint of how the playing of bridge is growing within the BfA clubs in South Africa, during the past 30 days our clubs recorded the results of 836 tables of bridge on Pianola; 1,622 players have played in tournaments at BfA clubs since April 2024 when we started operations. This newsletter now goes to most of the more than 2,600 players in our Pianola player database to assist them to play more and better bridge.

Google Analytics, the software that monitors the usage of websites, recorded that the most popular pages on the BfA website in June were respectively the Results, Home, News and Bridge Tips pages followed at a distance by the Learn Bridge page. The number of visitors to the BfA website in June was 12% higher than in May, almost all from South Africa, as you would expect. The Google map of African bridge clubs has been viewed 14,040 times since it was created to help players find new places to play.

Bridge for Africa is a non-profit company which assists bridge players in Africa to play more and better bridge by providing Internet marketing, scoring and administrative services to clubs currently ranging from the largest in South Africa's Western Cape, Kwa-Zulu Natal and Mpumulanga to amongst the smallest. You will find previous editions of our newsletters in the news section of the Bridge for Africa website. We welcome enquiries from other African bridge clubs interested in using our services.